


Mistletoe and Ragnarök

by stjarna



Series: 25 Days Christmas Romance Challenge and AoS Advent 2017 [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 25 Days to Christmas Prompt Challenge, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, I hope, It's actually quite funny and fluffy, don't let the title fool you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 06:19:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12881958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stjarna/pseuds/stjarna
Summary: From the25 Days Christmas Romance ChallengeDay 1: Character A and Character B, sworn enemies, are chosen to prepare the company Christmas Party.





	Mistletoe and Ragnarök

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @lilsciencequeen for the quick beta read.

Fitz hurried down the hallway. Bloody Nathanson with his bloody inability to let someone walk by his office without the desperate need to strike up a pointless conversation. Of course, now he was late for his meeting with Jemma Simmons. God. Bloody cosmos was trying to mess with him again. He couldn’t quite believe his damn bad luck. They’d been paired up to prepare the company’s Holiday party. The bloody _mandatory_ Holiday party. As if just attending it weren’t bad enough. Now he had to _plan_ it. And plan it with Jemma Simmons. Bloody Jemma Simmons with her bloody competitiveness. She never let a challenge go by, had hated him from the day he stepped foot into the place. He really tried to show himself from his best side at first, tried to impress her, because despite her hostile attitude it had been clear as day to Fitz that she was the most impressive and smartest person there, someone he’d like to know better, become friends with even. But Nooooo. Jemma Simmons hated him. And at some point he’d just given up on impressing her and had accepted his role as her arch nemesis. And he hated to give her the satisfaction of telling him off for being late when it was all bloody Nathanson’s fault.

* * *

Jemma glanced at her watch before glaring back at the door. Eleven minutes. It had been eleven minutes and Leopold Fitz still hadn’t showed up for their meeting. It was rather typical. No respect. No organizational talent. Probably doing it to spite her. She exhaled an exasperated scoff, before turning back to the thick folder laying in front of her on the table. She flung it open with a loud thud. The nerve! She’d been so excited when Mr Coulson had drawn her name from the hat. She’d dreamed of organizing the Holiday Party for years, but never had the luck of the draw. She’d added more and more useful data, resources, ideas to her folder each year, information about each and every possible religious affiliation (or lack thereof) and finally Coulson had drawn her name and for an exciting thirty seconds she’d been exhilarated to finally being able to show the company the best and most inclusive Holiday party to ever be thrown. And then Coulson had drawn the second name from the hat, and Jemma’s jaw had dropped to the floor. Not bloody Leopold Fitz. Her arch nemesis. When he first showed up at the company, Jemma had been quite excited about his arrival. He seemed an intellectual match for her, but then, he’d done nothing but try and one-up her. Show how superior his knowledge and expertise was. Ha! It was infuriating to say the least. He was exceptionally competitive. And always grumpy. And now she was supposed to organize the Holiday party with _him_? He didn’t even want to be there in the first place. Always hiding in a corner with a lonely beer for most of the night. And then Coulson had the audacity to ask them to “play nice”. Ha! Jemma was perfectly capable of doing so. Leopold Fitz on the other hand… Ha!

“Sorry, I’m late. Nathanson—”

Jemma looked up when she heard the familiar Scottish brogue, but was rather unwilling to listen to whatever excuse he had prepared. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let’s get started, shall we?”

He stopped briefly in his tracks, furrowing his brow and muttering a disgruntled “Alright” before stepping to the table.

* * *

Fitz dropped his head back, when he saw the abomination Jemma had pulled from her seemingly bottomless bag of Holiday party related odds and sods. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Her mouth gaped ajar in an exasperated gasp, the mistletoe still held up high in front of her face. “There really is no need for such language.”

Fitz gestured at the small branch in her hands. “Mistletoe, Simmons? You want to bring fucking mistletoe to the damn party and could you please lighten up and curse once in awhile?”

“I’m perfectly capable of cursing when it’s appropriate, and how about _you_ lighten up and smile once in awhile, you bloody Grinch!” she yelled back, waving the mistletoe in front of Fitz’s nose.

Fitz’s jaw dropped and he furrowed his brow in discontent. “Did you just bloody tell me to smile more?” He pointed towards the empty hallway. “Because last time I checked that could be considered sexual harassment!”

“Oh, but telling me to lighten up _isn’t_?” Jemma countered, her fiery eyes fixed on Fitz.

Fitz fell silent for a moment, noticing that she did have a point. He immediately regretted his decision when Jemma took the opportunity to continue their argument.

She brought the branch back up, right in front of Fitz’s face. “A mistletoe-bough is a typical Holiday party tradition. We’ve had one every year.”

Fitz leaned a bit closer, glaring at her with angry determination. “Yeah, and every year I looked at it thinking ‘What bloody moron had the idea to hang up a fucking mistletoe-bough?’ Did you know that in Norse mythology Baldur was killed with a mistletoe twig which was basically what set of Ragnarök?”

Jemma rolled her eyes indignantly, but Fitz ignored her silent protest. “Yeah, that’s _exactly_ how I feel about the damn thing! It’s the beginning of the end of the world!”

“Oh, please, a bit dramatic don’t you think?”

Fitz pointed to the door. “The couples in this company don’t need an excuse to flaunt their lovey-doveyness in front of everyone!”

“Of for crying out loud! Ebenezer Scrooge has nothing on you, you big old grump!” Jemma yelled back, her eyes narrowed into a thin challenging slit. “I think it’s lovely to give couples an excuse to express their fondness for each other publicly. It’s a Holiday party. People should be happy.”

“Yeah, well,” Fitz gestured at himself, “I’m not happy if a stupid tree branch tries to dictate whom I should kiss and when. Ever heard of consent?”

Jemma drew in an annoyed breath. “First of all, mistletoes aren’t trees. They’re hemiparasitic plants. Second of all, it’s a lovely and fun tradition that most people enjoy. Last year I had to kiss Daisy and it was a great hoot for everyone—”

Fitz scoffed loudly. “Yeah, well, if you enjoy being every dirty perverts’ wet dream—”

“—and thirdly,” Jemma continued, growling slightly clearly enraged by Fitz’s comment, “—obviously those who do not wish to participate are free to decline. We are all adults after all!”

“Oh yeah!” Fitz exclaimed, snatching the mistletoe from Jemma and ignoring her surprised wide-eyed expression. He held the branch above his head, leaning closer until his face was mere inches from hers, but with no intention to lower his voice. “So you wouldn’t feel pressured to kiss me if we stood in the middle of the room at the party under this bloody excuse for a plant with everyone around us chanting ‘Kiss, kiss, kiss’?”

She narrowed her eyes, not backing away from his stare. “Of course I would feel comfortable saying no, but I wouldn’t because _I think it’s a sweet tradition_.” She screamed the last part of her sentence so loudly that it took Fitz a moment to find his bearings again.

Fitz took a step back, lowering his hand holding the mistletoe and waving it in front of her nose. “Of course! You’re so damn competitive you’d probably kiss me even though you hate my guts, because you’d think it’s some kind of challenge!”

“Oh that is rich!” she barked. “When you’re the one who’s been trying to one-up me ever since you stepped foot in this company.”

Fitz gestured at her with both hands, the mistletoe in his right trembling slightly from built-up tension. “One-up you? I wasn’t trying to one-up you. I was trying to impress—”

Fitz stopped mid-word, suddenly realizing what he’d almost admitted to his arch nemesis, but she seemingly hadn’t even heard him.

“Look,” Jemma remarked sternly, her eyes still burning with anger. “Just because most people are perfectly comfortable participating, doesn’t mean you have to be. Like I said, everyone is free to decline, and it’s not my fault or anybody else’s if you feel you can’t. Because you _can_!”

She paused for a moment, her eyes wandering to the mistletoe in Fitz’s hand. “Here,” she exclaimed, snatching the branch away from him and holding it above the both of them. “Let’s practice.”

Fitz stared back at her in a silent mix of rage and confusion.

“There,” she screamed into his face, leaning a little closer. “Now tell me to bugger off, because we both know you want nothing more than to get away from me.”

Her chest heaved up and down, and she held Fitz’s glare, who felt his own breathing come fast and ragged. He couldn’t quite tell what it was or when his brain decided to shut off, or why, but suddenly his hands reached up, cupping her face. He noticed her eyes widening, right before his lips crashed against hers, conjuring a quiet sound of surprise from her.

He wasn’t sure what shocked him more, the fact that he was kissing Jemma Simmons, the fact that he kissed her far longer than any quick mistletoe peck should ever be, the fact that he felt his lips relax against hers, the fact that he felt his lips chase after hers for another softer kiss, the fact that her hand sunk onto his shoulder, the fact that her body sunk against his, the fact that his stomach churned with excitement, or the fact that it felt incredibly difficult to pull away.

Fitz stared at her breathlessly, still cupping her face, which was so close it shimmered blurrily before his eyes. He inhaled sharply when she leaned in, capturing his lips in another kiss, her tongue briefly gliding across his lower lip, only to brush against his moments later, when he gave into whatever strange things were happening.

Jemma sighed when she broke their kiss, a smile playing on her lips, her expression a mix of surprise, curiosity, and hunger.

“Wow,” Fitz mumbled absentmindedly, his breathing slowly steading and his heart becoming less erratic with every beat.

Jemma cleared her throat, seemingly undisturbed by the fact that Fitz’s palms were still cradling her face. Her fingers played with the curls at the back of his neck, sending a tickling tingle down Fitz’s spine. “Well, come to think of it,” Jemma remarked, her voice a bit hoarse and breathless, “it really explains a lot. Unresolved sexual tension can make people really quite snappy, and we both seem to be guilty of harboring—”

Fitz leaned forward, longing to feel the softness of her lips once more. When he pulled away, he couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth from pulling into a smile, and his heart filled with warmth when he saw Jemma’s eyes beaming back at him.

“Okay, fine,” he muttered quietly, “we can hang up the mistletoe at the party.”


End file.
